


Fateful Hours

by grav_ity



Category: Battlestar Galactica: 2003
Genre: Gen, General
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-09
Updated: 2010-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-06 01:16:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grav_ity/pseuds/grav_ity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All these things we place between ourselves and the power of darkness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Laura

**Author's Note:**

> AN: And this is what happened when you spend your Friday nights mainlining BSG season soundtracks, I suppose.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She sees their faces in the water.

**And The Sea With Its Deepness**

She sees their faces in the water.

She flows slowly through visions and dreams until she can barely tell one from the other. She hasn't dreamed of forests since Kobol. She prefers to think of alluvium and good tilled earth and a house that never was on a planet she wishes she could forget.

She forgets other things instead.

When the water is clear, she sees Felix Gaeta and Lieutenant Dualla, the unlucky boy who dreamed too much and the daughter everyone forgot they had except when her voice sounded through the pipes.

She knows the clearest faces are the most recent.

There is a clouded face, a boy she loved. He smiles through the ripples and she can almost hear him trying to tell her something, but the sound of water over rocks drowns him out. She wonders what he would tell now, that all her faith was for nothing.

She is sometimes glad his voice doesn't reach her ears.

At the bottom of the river there is a ship. Sometimes she forgets its name, even though she always swore she wouldn't. When she lost the Presidency, she forgot to take the paper with her, and she was not surprised to find out that it hadn't survived New Caprica.

She couldn't bring herself to mourn the loss again.

There's a number in her office and she can't remember how big it used to be. She can't remember kissing the President of the Colonies. She can't remember the girl with the teddy bear and the ship that couldn't jump. All the water rushes down to the ocean, carrying everything she ever was with it as it goes.

The sea is too deep.

**fin**

Gravity_Not_Included, February 27, 2009


	2. Adama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Right after the world ended, he told a lie.

**And The Earth With Its Starkness**

Right after the world ended, he told a lie.

He lied for the sake of hope, for the babies they didn't have. He lied for his son, and for all the daughters and sons he pretended to have to avoid the lives he had made a mess of. He lied because between death and dishonesty there is always the possibility that conditions will improve.

No one was more surprised than he to learn that his lie had been the truth.

It didn't happen the way he wanted. Vague mysticism is an ill cartographer, and not his choice of guide. But he jumped anyway, everyway they wanted him to. He almost lost them once, refusing to take the leap of faith, and after that he swore it would never happen again.

When they finally stopped to lay their burdens down, he'd almost forgotten what direction felt like.

The war never ends. The soldier in him knows that, however hard the father denies it. It's why he loves the Fleet so hard, why there's always a Raptor hovering in the nebula. Just in case. When they strike out again, the road is no more sure than before, but everyone is back at home and he feels more secure.

He tells himself that they aren't running away this time.

It is close enough now that he can smell it through space, hear it in the metal groans of his ship, feel it in the stale air. Every jump brings them to it, justifying all he did when he decided to run and condemn them all to living. Soon it will be over. His part will be done, and he will listen to the rain.

The stark truth is that Earth is a lie.

**fin**

Gravity_Not_Included, February 27, 2009.


	3. Caprica Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As soon as she had fingers, she began to break things.

**And The Rocks With Their Steepness**

As soon as she had fingers, she began to break things.

Life was so wonderful and so brief. Flower stems bent under the lightest breezes, and when she rolled them between her newborn finger and thumb. It took only a moment to break the skin and send the flower back to the God that loved and made it.

The baby's skin didn't have enough time to bruise.

The light breaks in Gauis' eyes slowly. He is surprised at the depth of her emotion. He is surprised at her possessiveness. He is surprised that she is a robot. He is surprised that she has killed almost everyone with whom he shares a genetic background. She wonders how any species could possibly have survived this long, given their seemingly constant state of shock.

She is not at all surprised that she saves his life.

If she was human, her people would have deified her. That is the paradox, of course, because she is not, and there is only one God. She wonders, in moments of blashphemy, what her shrines would have looked like, if any graven image would have captured her beauty. She doubts it. She has a name from it, though, and that is as close to deification as she will get. She remembers Anders from the Pyramid games, one of their lesser gods.

That is why she would rather kill D'Anna than let him die.

She knows that he sees someone else when he looks at her, but she also knows that his feelings are real. She can sense them every time he walks into her line of sight. She strains her neck so badly looking at the foetal monitor, wishing they would all just shut the frak up and let her feel, but then it is too late, and he is gone and Cottle is giving her something to stimulate contractions.

The path to blame is steeper on the way up.

**fin**

Gravity_Not_Included, February 27, 2009


	4. Six et cetera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As soon as she had fingers, she began to break things.

**And The Lightning With Its Rapid Wrath**

As soon as she had fingers, she began to break things.

Life was so wonderful and so brief. Flower stems bent under the lightest breezes, and when she rolled them between her newborn finger and thumb. It took only a moment to break the skin and send the flower back to the God that loved and made it.

The baby's skin didn't have enough time to bruise.

Helena's body was hard to forget. It yielded in unexpected ways when properly manipulated if it loved you. It was all sharp edges and blunt corners when it wanted to show the depth of its hatred. It crumpled under gunfire, just like everyone else, but that was not enough to numb the pain. That would require annihilation.

The last thought is of white skin, flushing with sudden heat.

All of God's chosen creatures are sacred, but this one, born at the holy time of reunion, has a special fire in her. It burns bright and clear, scaring those with cause to fear the truth and attracting those innocent enough to think the truth will set them free. She will be extinguished too soon, as all those chosen by God are.

She sees the light of glory before she goes, and dies of ecstacy.

Angel of Mercy, Angel of Death, she brings madness and chaos and a clarity beyond knowing. Everything is turned around, meaning the two different things at the same time and both being the true path. Left to her guidance, they would roam the stars forever and without her, all the light would disappear.

Electricity and a raging forest fire share a common ancestry.

**fin**

Gravity_Not_Included, February 27, 2009


	5. Lee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is the first in his flight class to be given a call sign.

**And The Sun With Its Brightness**

He is the first in his flight class to be given a call sign.

It is not a mark of honour. It is a mark of being too godsdamn smart and eager for his own good. It is a mark that will guarantee he goes far in the Fleet, that his star will ride high. It is something he will spend the rest of his life trying to live up to.

And trying to live down.

The flightsuit never fits him properly. It makes his arms feel bound against his body and he has to strain to reach some of the controls. The Mark 2 Vipers don't seem to have enough head space and when he wears his helmet, claustrophobia threatens at every turn.

They are both more like their fathers then they are willing to admit.

There is almost nothing left of the Fleet, so his promotions are not a complete surprise. What does surprise him is how empty they are, how empty everything is. They cling to the old ways too hard, but it seems that he is the only person who can see it. He has always been patient.

He falls out of love with the Fleet the instant Racetrack's spotlight hits his face.

He expected to die long before this. He still hasn't, so he decides to live on his own terms. His new suit fits much better, and the illusion of having more air is soothing. Sometimes he hears Tom Zarek's voice in his ear, whispering of nepotism and the need to change. When that happens, he turns on the Wireless and listens to the ship Captains gossip in the dark.

There is another story about flying and fathers and the brightness of the sun.

**fin**

Gravity_Not_Included, February 27, 2009.


	6. Kara

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are three kinds of love, and they all of them burn.

**And The Fire With All The Strength It Hath**

There are three kinds of love, and they all of them burn.

There is the love of a thing. The love of running in the race. The love of flying better than anyone else, ever. The love of drink and cards and paint and cigars. The love of insubordination. The love of being given the right order.

For a time, she thinks that will be enough to quiet the song of Destiny.

There is the love of a family. Not her family, of course, because it was broken long before she entered it, but of the family she made. In flight school, in combat and in the gym. She has worked hard for her place in the world, and not even the end of it was enough to bring her down.

But it was not enough to lead her home.

There is the love of a soul. And hers lies adrift between the worlds, cloven down the middle by the bullet she couldn't protect him from. She doesn't know very much anymore that isn't fear and doubt, but she knows that she will grow old with him, if only he will wake up so that she can tell him.

This is the strength of the fire in her brain, lighting the way for all to follow her.

**fin**

Gravity_Not_Included, February 27, 2009.


End file.
